


insecurities

by raffinit



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff and Angst, or Joel lying to her, sequel to Off the Cuff in which Tess does not deal well with hormones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-09
Updated: 2016-08-09
Packaged: 2018-08-07 17:39:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7723678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raffinit/pseuds/raffinit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tess sometimes doesn't quite know what to make of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	insecurities

**Author's Note:**

> Consider this a sequel to the mess that was Off the Cuff; here we delve into ANGST TOWN and FEELSVILLE
> 
> I hope everyone remembered to buy return tickets because you're all coming along for the ride into Hurt Valley with me

He starts first, with little lies.

_ Trouble with the client. Guards were out, heavy-duty; Fireflies. Bill was late, needed some help with things. _

Simple things, everyday problems in their life that aren't too difficult for her to believe; she trusts him. Joel would never lie to her.

She doesn't question him much about it, only sighs and curls up into his lap, wonders why there is now a scent underlying on his clothes and skin that she can't place.

She can't go with him on jobs anymore; it's not safe for her, or him, for that matter - it's hard to duck and dodge and tackle when your belly's in the way. Instead she busies herself with the menial tasks; collecting their rations, cleaning the apartment, fussing over their shipments that need organizing. It helps her keep busy, keep her mind running sharp as ever; keeps her mind from thinking too hard on why he feels so different late at night, when he comes home in the dead of night and she feels him in her half-sleep, this foreign caress against her stomach.

It happens one day; standing in line for rations on a particularly chilly day, Tess notices the looks, the glancing, darting eyes of guilty people. She stares back hard, tucks Joel’s shirt tighter around herself. It’s big enough to hide her growing waistline - the last thing they need now is to realize that hardass Tess is quite literally, getting soft. “Somethin’ you wanna say to me, Clarence?”

The man jumps, sputters some litany of excuses and apologies, until Tess folds her arms tight. He’s one of the few that know of her...condition, and somehow he manages the courage to shuffle forward to her, a child at the desk of a headmistress. “N-now don’t be hatin’ on the messenger and all that, pretty lady - s’not good for a woman in your position - b-but uh, the fellas and I, see, we was uh - we was wonderin’ when you and Joel split?”

“Split?” The thought seems laughable to her; a man like Joel, disappearing after he put a  _ baby  _ inside her -

“You deserve someone better, Tess,” Clarence rambles now, inching closer to her. “Someone who’ll take care o’you and junior, keep you safe - ‘stead of, ‘stead of runnin’ off with some other broad.”

“ _ Runnin’ off? _ ” she spits; she feels it leap in her heart, in her throat - a stab of defensive pain. She is the same height as Clarence, but she towers over him, eyes blazing. “The hell are you talkin’ about?”

“Well - “ He shoves his hands in his pockets awkwardly, eyes the familiar, decidedly large shirt wrapped around Tess’ still-quite-slender frame, “y’know...you’re not the only one he sneaks around. Avoids me in the streets; pass him hangin’ around down alleys, headin’ to god knows where with some other lady who (pardon me) sure ain’t as pretty as -”

“Shut up,” she hisses, working to quell the urge within her to punch him hard in the side of the head. 

And yet, it’s as he said - she shouldn’t be shooting the messenger.

But all the same, she feels the vicegrip in her chest tighten. If she’s being honest, she hadn’t wanted any confirmation; and she hadn’t wanted it to come from anyone speculating, which is rather humiliating.

Clarence offers her what he thinks is a sympathetic look, but Tess sees nothing more than pity; poor ol’ Tess, knocked up and abandoned, can’t keep her man straight now that she’s got his baby in her belly. “You just give me the word, Tess, and I’ll skin ‘im up and make Junior a pretty lil’ blanket out o’his daddy for ‘im.”

She doesn’t respond to that, doesn’t think about punching Clarence hard enough to loosen teeth, or running home and crying in shame and hurt and anger. She turns on her heels,  _ fuck the rations _ , and she walks back up to the apartment. 

The first thing she does is pack a bag.

The second thing she does is send out a messenger to Marlene. 

Clarence is all too happy to deliver it for her.

While the message flies, she doesn’t think there’s much she can do now. Instead she curls up on their bed, around their child, and wonders if he’ll fuck his new partner in it too. 

She wakes to the feeling of his hand on her shoulder, gentle, and she feels the spot where he touches burn her.

She jerks away from him, jolts upright and scoots to the opposite end of the bed. She can see the confusion in his face, almost hurt quickly filed away because she knows he must be  _ sure  _ something’s wrong; maybe she’s just confused? “Y’okay?” he says, and his voice is soft, deep and soothing and  _ worried. _

Tess says nothing. Her lips press into a flat line and she wraps her arms round her middle reflexively. “Think - you owe me an explanation.” She is pleased to hear that, despite the vulnerability of being curled in bed, the way that the mattress creaks when he sits down and tries to edge closer to her, her voice is steely.

“An -” He looks almost apprehensive, and she tries to look through him, not at him. Tess nods curtly. 

“For - what?” he says, and for a moment she almost believes him, almost believes the confusion in his tone and would have if it weren’t for that lingering smell and the way his hands dart anxiously downwards, the way his palms look sweaty or fingertips a little shaky. There are signs; she catches them. She knows when he’s being made nervous.

“You know for  _ what _ ,” she says, and her voice is rasping and sharp now. “Did y’think I wasn’t ever gonna know, Joel? Ever? Did you think you’d - what, just up and leave one day, leave me with a kid to raise and head off on your own?”

“Tess -”

“I  _ know  _ what you fuckin’ thought,” she tells him, her voice hot and shaking now with anger, with hurt; shock, even - “you never wanted this, did you? And y’know what, Joel, I understand - you probably think I did this on purpose, got knocked up so that I could give you another kid and replace the one you lost - don’t touch me -” she chokes, pushing his hands away as he reaches to meet both of hers. “Don’t - I know, I can see it, the way there’s always a goddamn  _ excuse _ .”

“I -”

“Even now you wanna leave,” she says, her fists clenched in the sheets, “I can see it, you’re - you don’t wanna be here - so just go, then. Don’t fuckin’ lie to me.”

“Tess, I’m not  _ lying  _ -”

“Then what are you doing?”

She doesn’t realize she’s shouted until she sees the confusion, the hurt in his eyes, and then an even greater shame sets in, but no - he is at fault here, it was his misdeed. She sits there, shaking, knuckles white on the sheets and eyes narrowed and heated. 

Joel rises from the bed. Yes, she thinks; this is it, she was right, she has a goddamn witness to corroborate of course he was right too, and Joel was never hers. She thinks of the child inside her; did he want that, too? All those nights when he’d stay up to kiss her belly and hold her close and talk to her about how their baby might be - that all meant nothing, then, and she admits that he played a fine game, that the fact that he seemed quite so sincere makes it hurt even more to learn that he wasn’t. 

He turns, and she prepares herself; she knew it was coming, anyways. She’d known, she supposes, no matter how she’d tried to suppress it - from the moment they kissed. He would leave, someday.

“Tess, I -.” He reaches a hand to her, pleading, but she only regards him coldly, indifferently, and he pulls back, runs his fingers through his hair as he paces a frustrated circle. “I swear to you,” he says, and her chest aches at the strained, clotted thickness of his voice. “I swear to you, on my life, Tessa - I never touched anyone else.”

Her brow twitches; she feels the baby fussing, the ache is sharp, and she presses her hand to her stomach, soothes the baby gently, and even though she sees him yearning to touch her, to soothe their child as well, the hardened glaze of her eyes are enough to keep him where he stands. 

“You’ve always had a damn good poker face, Tex,” she whispers the nickname; hates herself for the  _ affection _ that laces it still. “I gotta say - you had me fooled a long while -.”

“ _ Tessa _ ,” he pleads. “Tess, how could you think I’d do that to you? You’re - you’re havin’ my  _ baby _ , goddamn it -”

She hisses suddenly, hunches over her stomach; he tries to go to her, rushes to her side, touches her shoulder, but Tess slaps his hands away, shoves them from her stomach. “ _ Don’t _ touch me,” she grits, and she takes ragged, shallow breaths until the pains fade. She’d be told of these pains before - Braxton somethings. Pain from stress. 

His hands are trembling as his side, he stares at her wounded and lost. “Tess, that’s our baby -”

“It won’t be for long,” she tells him, and she manages the strength to look him in the eye, brows pinched from the twinges that linger. “Whatever it is; I’m leaving tomorrow. Marlene’s agreed to let me stay with her until I have the baby, and then I give it up. To someone that deserves the baby.”

He looks as if she’s just slapped him in the face, or spat on Sarah’s grave. “What -”

Tess sinks into the bed, suddenly drained, and she curls around her stomach, wishing she could feel something other than love for the life inside her. Something that would make the separation easier. “You don’t get to have our baby,” she murmurs, broken and thick. “Not after - that. I won’t let you take our baby from me and raise it with some other whore you found in the streets. You don’t deserve our baby.”

She curls tighter around herself. “I sure as hell don’t, either.”

He reaches for her, haltingly, and god, if that isn’t what gets her - he wants to help, he looks as hurt as she feels. “You can’t - do that,” he chokes, and she watches him almost collapse on the floor; he stumbles back, leans on the wall heavily. “I won’t let you do that to our baby -”

“That’s our baby,” he says. “That’s - that’s a part of you, a part of me - I won’t let you take him away from us.” He stares at her beseechingly; surely this is all some kind of sick and twisted nightmare, some kind of fever dream in the darkest hour of the night - 

He fumbles in his pockets. Tess wants to scream.  _ GO _ , she wants to say.  _ LEAVE. GO. STOP. _

Joel turns, rubs the back of his neck with one hand, the other a clenched fist. 

“I -” he says, his voice a little rough, a little thick; “I don’t know who or what happened that’s got you thinkin’ these things, Tess, but - I know it wasn’t fair to keep secrets from you -”

“You don’t  _ know _ ?” she spits, despite herself, and her fingers dig into the sheets as the muscles of her back start to twinge and ache, the baby kicks to hurt now. “Maybe it’s all the damn  _ lyin’ _ you’ve been doin’, Joel.”

He flinches, nearly cowers from something far more agonizing than a physical blow. He sucks in a breath, seems to find something in his mind to steel himself, shuffles on his feet anxiously. “I’ll tell you,” he mumbles, searching her face imploringly. “I didn’t think it’d come t’somethin’ like this, and I - dunno if - now’s the right time, since I - wanna explain, but - was - plannin’ on -”

He holds out his fist and uncurls his fingers, and resting on the perch of his palm is a finely worked ring - it looks bronze or copper with the golden tint of the metal, and the body of a dragonfly curves into a slim band, wings outstretched, every vein in the metal glinting in the half-light of dusk.

He takes a deep, shaking breath. 

“Well - y’know - ‘bout a couple months ago, I had to go make that drop on the way to the docks, and I...I went through the market. Turns out they got a fire goin’, all the way in the back there they were sellin’ their wares and things, and there was a jeweler. And she made these silver rings outta spoons, twisted round this hot metal rod, and they were - the loveliest things you’d ever seen, Tess.” 

She curves on the bed, apprehensive, her eyes still narrow and distrusting, her fingers shaking in the sheets gauzed over her hands. 

“Took - a lot of tradin’ in favors with a lot of people, but eventually, I got up enough to pay her, and she said she’d teach me - well, how to make a...a ring. Didn’t tell her what the occasion was, I - I know you like it discreet. Ended up costin’ a little extra, ‘cause she had to show me how to cut the metal right, y’know, the shape and all, and - and ‘s not like we had a whole bunch of tools, mostly just a fire and a few things she scrounged up, but - well - ‘s why it looks a little - y’know.” The dragonfly falls to one side, rolls onto a wing. It is small, and where the tail meets the head she notices there are tiny carved eyes. And at the center, between the spread wings - 

“Oh, and - see, this was a great find - I ended up usin’ - y’remember when we found that old antique mall a long time ago? Managed to find a little jewelry? Not like anyone’s gonna be wantin’ jewelry in the trades, they’ll want supplies and things, but - those garnet earrings...came in handy.”

He smiles a crooked smile. Tentative. 

He drops to one knee. She feels a weight of crushing, heavy, throat-thickening shame settle over her like a lead blanket. There are tears threatening to spill from her eyelids.

“Actually -”

And he climbs onto the bed with her, and she wants so badly to curl away from him and be proven right, but instead his arms are open to her. 

She presses inside them, and he holds her hand, and she bawls into his shoulder. He strokes her hair -  _ Tess, Tess, how could I ever leave you, hm, how could I ever leave you and our baby, - rather die, Tess,  _ and she cries, her hands limp now as he asks her, kissing her cheeks and her hair. 

“You marry me?”

She nods, vigorously, makes a kind of soft whimpering sound as he slips the ring gently over her finger.

He kisses her, kisses her for a long, long time, until she no longer feels the urge to sob. 

They fall asleep, her thumb stroking over the dragonfly’s wings, rhythmic, soothing as his heartbeat.


End file.
